Right to Life

Today at lunch we were discussing hand washing techniques and how normal people do not wash the top sides of their fingers very well.  The face of your fingers?  Check.  Palms?  Check.  Up to your wrists or higher if your are crazy?  Check.  Maybe even the sides of your fingers as you interlock your hands?  Check minus?  But the tops of you fingers?  That is crazy talk.

This led me to exclaim that I don't wash my hands.  I support bacteria's Right to Life.

I have beef (I'm clever sometimes) with vegetarians who don't eat meat because it is "wrong" to kill animals.



My claim is simple.  At what size / complexity does the organism in question loose its right to life in your book?  You don't want to eat beef, that would be killing a cow.  Gotcha.  How about a chicken?  Still too big?  Grasshopper? Come on, a grasshopper doesn't even have a vertebrae.



How about a mosquito?  What did you do the last time a mosquito bit you?  You squished it, that's what you did.  OK, lets say you are that crazy person that picks up a daddy long legs up (ripping off three legs in the process) in your bathroom and sets it down somewhere outside.  Even if you ARE that crazy person, I bet you washed your hands the last time you visited the bathroom.

[caption id="attachment_1469" align="alignnone" width="180" caption="God bless the US education system"][/caption]

At a minimum, you took your monthly shower with environmentally friendly soap and put on environmentally sound deodorant (that doesn't really work).  Do you know how many bacteria you just sentenced to death?  Millions!  What about their right to life?  What is the difference?  Where do you draw the line and why there?

For that matter, what is the difference between animals and the vegetables you eat?  Those plants were alive before you killed them to eat them.  I fail to see the difference.

[caption id="attachment_1466" align="alignnone" width="230" caption="Bear Grylls also fails to see the difference!"][/caption]

and since we're on the topic of Bear Grylls

[caption id="attachment_1468" align="alignnone" width="217" caption="Lord of the Rings Reference for those who don't get this."][/caption]

Me like Netflix

Every once in a while I like to post an article that is in some way related to industries that might interest an LGO student.  This article caught my eye because I am a satisfied Netflix customer.  I use (or used since I am currently in Germany, but with the MIT VPN I can still watch online movies) the physically mailed DVDs and the on-demand features (through the internet and/or my XBOX360) extensively.

Netflix Article



This article is about a regional Netflix warehouse and while there is not a ton of technical information, it is an interesting (and quick read).  It sounds like the Netflix logistical setup is highly automated with a machine that reads and sorts at 30,000 bar codes a minute.  I bet that would be quite a site to see.  Anyway, enjoy the article.  I did.

LGO thesis opinions two months into the internship

I wanted to take a quick minute to comment on the LGO thesis as I pass the two month point.  I knew a number of LFM 09s who were still writing their thesis up until the last minute, desperately trying to finish it.  At the moment, I cannot see why this happens.  Some quick background.

The thesis that we write has to satisfy both the Engineering school as well as the Management school, but if you read them you will see that LGO theses are often lacking in the Engineering side (I have the rare opposite problem with almost no management component).  From the number of recent theses that I have scanned, they range from about 45 pages to 100+, but are typically 60 pages long.  This includes the titles, bibliography, graphs, tables, etc.  We have a very specific format for the thesis (though it changes a little every year) and without writing a word, your thesis starts at about 15 pages.

[caption id="attachment_1448" align="alignnone" width="149" caption="The thesis structure is preset. Like putting the cover on the TPS report."][/caption]

You have your title page, acknowledgment page, table of contents page, table of pictures page, table of tables page, a page break for every new chapter, and a number of intentionally left blank pages.  This means that without writing a word, you are 25% done (15 of ~60).

In my opinion, most LGOs write backgrounds (both company and problem) that are way too long.  Nobody cares and no one is impressed with your extra long thesis.



Long background or not, you can write (or get it 95%) the background before you even learn what the problem is.  This means that the first couple weeks of the internship where you are sitting around not doing anything, can be a productive time.  You really have no excuse not to do it.

Next comes the problem definition.  Aside from a few projects that radically change a couple months into the project (it happened to someone this year, 2 months in the company decided to drop the project) defining the project scope (and in turn what you plan to accomplish) is due back to LGO about two months into the internship.  The paper you turn into LGO must be approved by both of your academic advisors (Engineering and Sloan) as well as your company sponsor and supervisor.  With this document being due, there is no reason you cannot complete this section of your thesis during the first two months of the internship.  Just write it as you are completing the LGO document, or shortly after.

After that comes approach and results.  I admit, all of this cannot be done during the internship for everyone, but documenting the approach as you do it can be useful.  It is useful to concisely write down what you did, why you did it, what you have planned next, and what you need to accomplish this plan.  Especially writing down what you plan to do next.  You should even try to anticipate what will happen and how you will respond.  As we learned in Papa Spears's class, you should write down what you expect to happen and why.  It always interesting to see what you wrote and then to think about why you were right or why you were wrong.

The key here is you don’t have to write the approach all at once.  Write it as you go.  I have my thesis open on my computer every day, and look at it every day to see if there is anything I can add during the dull moments.

Finally, results.  There are lots of reasons this cannot be done before the internship is over, but you should be able to construct a large portion of it.  This means that you should have most of your thesis done before you leave your internship.  I know I will have it done because I am two months into my internship and I already have everything but the last section of the approach and the results section are finished (ready for review).  The approach is documented through where I am now and I’ve already written the approach for the rest of the internship, but may have to modify it if things do not go as expected.

As a brief aside before I finish this post, I think many LGO theses are too long.  My goal is to have the shortest thesis this year but to still have something I am proud to turn in.  It takes skill and effort to say something with less words (something I do NOT practice with my blogs) and I hope to cut the fat out of my thesis.  I am aiming for 42 pages (last year's shortest was 44).

[caption id="attachment_1450" align="alignnone" width="192" caption="I just visited Paris so I felt this was appropriate."][/caption]

Forget Paris...is a chick flick. Paris is a cool city.

This past week my wife flew from Boston to Germany to spend the week with me.  Yay!  We spent the first couple days in Marburg and I took some half days at work.  On Wednesday we hopped in the Ford Fiesta and drove to Paris.  The drive to Paris is between 6 and 7 hours of highway driving through the countryside.  The Fiesta was not as efficient on gas as I thought it would be.   It was about 8.2 l/100km instead of the listed 5.1 l/100km.  Now I knew that it would not get the listed value but I did not think it would be that far off.  Most of the driving was in France where the max speed limit is 130 kph so I was in 5^th gear at 4,000 rpm.  I’m sure if I were traveling much slower I would have gotten better mileage, but ohh well.  After paying to park the car in Paris it probably would have been about the same price or a little cheaper (less than 20 Euro) to take the train for two people.  Ohh well.

Since the drive is rather boring and once we entered France the amount of English speaking songs diminished greatly, we amused ourselves with action photos.

• Bottom Right: I went with Ferrari and Lisa went with Blue Steel (see Zoolander if you do not get this).

We made it to our hotel (after circling it a couple times looking for a parking garage) and grabbed a quick dinner before bed.  We had an early morning planned.



We got up bright and early to beat the line at the Louvre.  We got there about 45 minutes before it opened so we got in within 5 minutes of it opening.

I don’t know what to say about the Louvre.  It is intense.  It is overwhelming.  I actually did not like the Louvre.  It was too much great art in one place and it made it hard to appreciate it.  The walls are absolutely lined with paintings and it is hard to keep track of who painted what and which pieces are spectacular and which ones are just great.  You’ll notice that I do not have pictures of some of the best pieces.  I prefer to buy postcards or books with professional pictures of the stuff I really like.  That way I don’t spend my entire time fighting through crowds and hoping people will move to snap a crappy picture in bad lighting with a terrible glare (see the Mona Lisa below).  Without worrying about pictures, I can spend my time appreciating the art and just purchase the photo for a memory.



After the Louvre (we just decided to leave after 3-4 hours, you could spend weeks..literally weeks in there) we walked over Pont Nuef to Sainte-Chapelle with the incredible stained glass.

• Multiple Cat poses throughout.  There were so many cats we could not pose by all of them!


• Bottom Right: Once again, we saw diversity (and once again for good measure, watch Anchorman if you do not get this).

After that we walked over to Notre Dame.  I’ve now been to a couple of grand cathedrals in Europe and on the outside Notre Dame is my favorite.  I can’t say the inside was as impressive as others I have seen, but the overall architectural feel of the building is my favorite.

After Notre Dame was walked down the river and then to the other side of the Louvre to walk down the Champs-Elysées (THE main street in Paris) to the Arc de Triomphe.  Overall a very nice walk, but mighty hot at that time of day.

• Bottom Left: Lisa is a hunchback in front of Notre Dame, obviously.

That night we went to see the Lido show which was fun.  I’ve seen it compared to a Vegas show but I have never been to Vegas so I would not know, but I would certainly recommend the Lido show.

The next day we got up early again and headed to the Musée d'Orsay which had a number of great pieces including some from Manet, Monet, Rodin, and Van Goh just to name some of the artists that I recognized (and I am NOT an art person by any stretch of the imagination).  This museum was a little more my size compared to the Louvre.  We were able to see just about every piece within a couple hours, stopping to really look at anything that caught our eye.  It’s just not really practical to really look at everything and still do other things that day.

• Bottom Right: Someone stabbing a gator.  This upset me greatly!

After that we went to the Hotel des Invalides with Napoleon's tomb and the Musée de l'Armée.

• Middle Middle: Napoleon's coffin was enormous!


• Bottom Middle: What Napoleon is looking at.


• Bottom Right: The dome above Napoleon.

I had a field day at the army museum.  I love military history (is there any other kind of history?).

• Top Middle: Cool guns from WW1 so that you could shoot someone without popping your head above the trench.


• Top Right: Interesting picture showing which parts of France collaborated with the Nazis.  I had a discussion about this issue (and American versus French impressions) with someone raised in France just two nights before, so it caught my eye.


• Bottom Middle: There was an absurd amount of medieval armor from France and other nations.  Awesome!

After that we went to the Rodin museum, which was fantastic!  I can’t recommend it enough.

• Top left: I’m thinking…


• Top 2^nd from Left: Still thinking…


• Top 2^nd from Right: The gates of Hell…I’ll probably see those again… :-)

Next we walked onto the Eiffel Tower, which is nearby (it's near in the sense that the incredibly long garden in front of the Eiffel Tower ends near the museum).  After the Eiffel Tower we hopped on the Metro to go the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur (high elevation in Paris) for a view of the city.  The Basilique was ok, but this was the only place I was seriously worried about pick pockets.  There were tons of people out who would just walk up to you and get close to “sell things.”  I saw some other tourist literally running a couple times to avoid people at the choke points.  I don’t know if the city allows it (it was not like this anywhere else) because it’s actually church ground there.  I’m not sure.  You can see from the picture below how packed it was there.  The view was good, but if you’ve already gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower (we did not) I’m not sure this place was a must see.

• Bottom Left: Forgot to include a picture of our hotel, so I threw it in here.


• Top Left: This place was a zoo, and while you can’t see it in the picture there were a ton of steps and garden area below this.  It’s a very steep hill.

On the final day we went to Versailles.  We go there at about 10 AM and proceeded to wait in line for over an hour.  I’ve tried to document the line experience below. :-)

• Middle Left: The line did some crazy loops and overall had about four sections.  You walked up and down the length of the courtyard three times (green, red, yellow) and then across the width (purple).


• Middle Right: Picture immediately upon entering the line.


• Bottom Left: after rounding the first corner (between green and red).


• Bottom 2^nd from Right: Almost there!


• Bottom Left: Inside!

After getting in, it was again like the Louvre with being absolutely packed.  You can get a sense of how crowded it is from the Hall of Mirrors picture.

• Bottom 2^nd from Left: Hall of Mirrors.


• Bottom 2^nd from Right: Room after room covered in art and cloth walls, each room a different color.


• Bottom Right: We went to McDonalds after we were done.  Not because we’re lame American tourists but because McDonalds is the only reasonably priced meal you can get and the only meal you can get quickly.  Naturally, I got a McFlurry when we were done.

Overall I left with a fantastic impression of Paris.  Between the Champs-Elysées, the park by the Eiffel Tower, the park in front of the Hotel de Invalids, the Luxembourg Gardens, Versailles, etc. you come to appreciate just how large Paris is and how many parks they have.  They really appriacate art and beautiful buildings there.  Overall, a great place to visit.

The ride home was uneventful, but we had fun.

• Top Left: “Liter is French for give me some F***ing Cola!”  If you don’t get this, stop everything and rent Super Troopers.  You can thank me later.


• Top Right: French cows prompts the phrase “Fetche le vasche” followed by “what?”  If you don’t get this, stop everything and rent Monty Pythons and the Holy Grail.  You can thank me later.


• Bottom Left: Had to pee on France.  France knows what it did.


• Bottom Right: Happy to be leaving France and entering Germany!